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Month: January 2009

It’s a pleasant night
First one in a while
I haven’t taken Lexie fetching
for a while either — overworked
So, instead of taking a right
we take a why not
Can’t see a moon to light our way
but the suburb lights reflect in the pink clouds
Park closed at dark
Park Authority
I'll tell them I didn’t see
I don’t even know if she’ll want to fetch
She’s all sniffs
I let her off leash —
no running to the stream
As we pass it by
She shyly deviates tween
path and brook
Only when I go off–path
does her tail wag
and her feet scamper to water
I᾿m surprised to find the stream half–frozen
a sheet of ice spreads towards the middle
No sticks around, so I climb onto the tree
fallen across the stream
and fetch one there amidst the debris
Will she need daylight to see
or is it some other sense?
I throw it into the stream
and she fetches it back
I throw it in again; she’s taking a while
she needs daylight, I guess
Here comes Lexie dragging this
mythical log
Strange, pure, hewn branch
from the river bottom
Not waterlogged, just heavy in solidity
She can’t even drag it out of the water
just up to the shore
and tears off half its bark in one bite
So, over and over, mythical log
to be dredged from the bottom
of icy river on beautiful night
Headlights peek at me for a while and fade
an ambulance siren blares
a police copter circles around
Mocking my fears — no one cares
Lexi scampers around the sheet of ice
not finding the branch in the depths
“Get it!” I cheer, and she goes in and drags it out again